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A global flu pandemic could kill 62 million people, experts have warned.

The 1918 pandemic claimed 50 million lives, and experts in The Lancet predict the toll today would be higher than this, despite medical advances.

The world’s poorest nations would be hardest hit, fueled by factors such as HIV and malaria infections, the Harvard University researchers believe.

Yet developing countries can least afford to prepare for a pandemic, which needs to be addressed, they say.

Killer strain

Lethal global flu epidemics tend to occur three or four times a century.

Some scientists believe a new one may be imminent and could be triggered by bird flu.

So far there have been only 258 cases of the latest strain of avian flu, H5N1, recorded in humans.

But the fear is that this strain could mutate and spread quickly and easily between people, triggering a deadly pandemic.

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– Bird Flu or something like it such as Ebola, are very unpredictable cards in humanitiy’s deck. Certain elements of the Perfect storm Hypothesis, like Peak Oil and Falling Water Tables, are developing slowly and we’ll have some warning on them. But, something like a pandemic will come out of left field and rip through the world’s countries like a wildfire.

– It is typical of people and their attention spans that interest in the potential problems with Bird Flu have migrated to the back burner because nothing, so far, has happened. Perhaps it never will, or perhaps nature is still ambling her way towards that final fatal genetic mutation that will change H5N1Bird Flu from a desease primarily of birds to one that jumps from person to person by airborne means.

– If you think that governments have got the situation well in hand, consider their different approaches to the Antiviral Medications vs. Flu Vaccines question with regard to Bird Flu. It is chilling that the authors of this study say that, “We cannot expect to vaccinate more than 14% of the world’s population within a year of pandemic” and that 62% of the nations examined have plans to protect their populations by makeing Flu Vaccines their first line of defense

– If you believe in insurance policies, it would make very good sense to get a round of the anti-viral medicines; Tamiflu and Relenza and store them in a cool dry place in case you and your family need them in the future. Unless you are a medical professional or highly placed in the government or military, I don’t think any of us should be depending on their government to supply these to us when the storm breaks. Indeed, 62% of the governments surveyed will tell you to wait until vaccines are developed. Nope, the $100 to $200 USD it will cost you to put aside Flu Antiviral medicnes could be the best insurance you ever bought.

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A third of countries which have drawn up flu pandemic plans have failed to set out how they would distribute medical treatment, a report has found.

Researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Ben Gurion University Israel studied 45 national pandemic plans.

They warned resources would be scarce, so decisions on who should get drugs or vaccines should be made in advance.

They said prioritising treatment could help reduce death and disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged every country to develop and maintain a national plan on bird-flu.

It also recommends nations prioritise the allocation of pharmaceutical resources among the population.

Rationing

Researchers looked at 19 plans from developed nations and 26 from developing countries. In total, these represented around two-thirds of the world’s population – 3.8bn people.

The countries included the US, Norway, Australia, India, China, Serbia, Bahrain, Israel, South Africa, UK, Mexico, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.

The report, Priority Setting for Pandemic Influenza: An Analysis of National Preparedness Plans, found almost half of the plans they examined favoured antiviral medications, such as Tamiflu, while 62% prioritised giving citizens a flu vaccine.

This was an unexpected finding, researchers said, as antiviral treatment may be the only pharmaceutical intervention available in some countries.

“We cannot expect to vaccinate more than 14% of the world’s population within a year of pandemic.”

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Contrast this with an earlier article ➡ that said it would be years before we had a vaccine.

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A new vaccine against bird flu developed by GlaxoSmithKline is more effective than any previous version and works at a far smaller dose, the company reported yesterday on its Web site.

The ability to immunize people with small doses greatly increases the possibility of making enough vaccine to protect much of the population in the event of a pandemic.

Until now, high dosage requirements have been a major obstacle to making a vaccine for avian flu. An earlier vaccine, made a year ago by Sanofi Pasteur and stockpiled by the government, required such large doses that it would be difficult or impossible to keep up with a pandemic.

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I haven’t talked a lot on this blog yet about Avian Bird Flu (ABF) but it has certainly been a topic of conversation and concern among myself and my friends.

Many countries and medical authorities have been playing down the threat of ABF and saying that if a pandemic breaks out, we can simply crank up our vaccine production facilities and manufacturer sufficient doses to protect our populations though they need to wait until an actual outbreak occurs because only then will they have a genetic handle on the specific target organism to manufacturer the vaccine against. I never belived this in the past because I had read elsewhere that historically with all the vaccine production facilities in the world running full bore, we have never produced vaccine quanities sufficient for more than a minor fraction of the world’s population.

Now we find out in the BBC article referenced here that the ability to produce a viable vaccine against ABF could be 10 years away. There is a lot more to say on this subject and I hope to write more on it but for now, here’s the link to a story that appeared on BBC News today: ➡

Also worth reading: ➡ and: ➡ and: ➡

One piece in the ‘Perfect Storm’ puzzle currently assembling itself is the Pandemic Piece. As human populations become denser, the probability that an extremely virulent bug will decimate us grows. Normally, bugs with such virulence kill their hosts before they can propagate to their next host and, in effect, their own virulence limits their ability to spread. But, as our populations grow denser, the probability also grows that such bugs will be able to spread from host to host quickly enough to survive.

In the wake of a cluster of avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged.

The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients.

Full article: ➡